Laser Cut Dark Age Village

One last post before I venture forth to Carronade (Falkirk) on Saturday.

We have been preparing for a game of Blood Eagle (or possibly Saga eventually) for a while, my Saxons are assembled and undercoated, and Del and Jeff are both just about ready. To prepare the terrain I decided to build a village.

As usual, I turned to laser cutting to design the main structures, but I wanted to step up a notch for the thatched rooves. I have seen towels used very effectively, but I have already got a Japanese building from 4Gound that uses "Teddy Bear Fur" and I really like the effect. A quick visit to Hobbycraft got me a metre of teddy bear fur, so I was all ready to go.

Several years ago I designed a fantasy barbarians hall. The basic shape of the building matched that of several Saxon meeting halls that I have found reference for online. So I used that as the basic building but removed most of the "fantasy" styling and ( as the roof lifts off ) added a raised rectangular firepit.

I decided to design at least two different houses, as clearly, in reality, every Dark Age building would have it's own individual peculiarities, so a whole village with the same building design would look a little unrealistic.

Once again, taking my design from online photo reference I found that a lot of Dark Age houses have the thatch going all the way down to the ground. I think this gives a distinct styling which pins it down to the dark age period.

The second design is a more familiar one with the more standard small building shape.

Once I had laser cut the kits, I assembled them and set to with the teddy bear fur. I cut it slightly larger than needed and then applied it to the models with PVA glue. Once in place I used watered down PVA, with a drop of washing up liquid added, to soak the fur and "comb"  it with a heavy brush into the correct position. I let it dry out for a couple of days and then trimmed it to shape.

I have decided that I am going to sell these buildings, as fully assembled pieces, at Carronade in Falkirk this Saturday. I will sell them individually, or if anyone is really keen I will do a deal on the whole village...